So I’ve been debating whether or not to try out some sort of CGMS.  I’m going to go to a few informational sessions regarding certain products.  I will first be attending the Minimed session.  I don’t even know how they work, but I just don’t feel like inserting another pump like infusion set into my body.  I may even be wrong on if that is even how you do it. 

Sorry about such a short post today.  I’m in the process of looking for a new apartment and it is so time consuming.  Oh and did I mention I have final exams next week and I am about 4 chapters behind on my reading.  Wait; don’t let me forget about the Real Estate Licensing Exam in less than a month also.  Shoot, I forgot my brother is getting married in November and I’m the best man and I haven’t even begun to plan a bachelor party. 

So stressful.  And in this process I must admit that I have been lacking with my testing.  I know I need to keep up with it more, but I have been so busy running from one apartment complex to the next and back to another and doing this and then doing that.  I wish it was just all very easy. 

Once again, I apologize for the boringness of this post, but I’m sure whoever is reading this can relate to the problems I am faced with right now.  If anyone has any suggestions on stress relieving and what not, please let me know.

For those of you that see my page on Tudiabetes, you probably know by now I am a huge Philadelphia Eagles fan.  You’re probably wondering what this has to do with my diabetes, but just follow along, it does.  Training camp is starting back up and it is held in
Bethlehem, PA, right around the corner from where I lived for the first 21 of my 23 years.  This is the first year I will not be able to attend training camp .   I will be checking up on live updates from camp, probably as often as I test my sugars, if not even more.  Now this is where my diabetes comes into play.  If any of you know any other Philly fans, you will know, we are the craziest, best, loving, loyal fans of any sport.  My heart rate and sugars tend to rise and lower on every play, depending on the outcome. 

Before games I will test my sugar, and it’s usually a little low, I get low when I am anxious.  I test again at half-time, and this result all depends on how the game is going.  If we are losing, I am pissed and stressed and it is high, but if we are winning it usually tends to be normal.  Same at the end of the game, but there can be significant highs at the end. Usually during pre-game I will eat and then snack throughout the game.  This snacking is bad because I don’t count how much insulin I should be taking and just take a manual bolus by guessing.  Let me give you a great example. 

Last year’s NFC Divisional Play-off game against the New Orleans Saints, my sugars were all over the place.  It was an up and down game, we’re winning, we’re losing, we’re winning again.  Final drive, we need a touchdown.  I feel my heart racing, I’m sweating, and I’m now standing and pacing around.  Now I’m bending over because my stomach feels like I’m going to get sick waiting for the next play.  Now let me stop right here because I know what some of you are thinking, “Is this kid crazy, it’s just a game.”  Like I said about Philly fans earlier, it’s not just a game, its part of our life and affects our daily lives.  Believe me; ask my girlfriend, I am blessed to have an amazing girlfriend who understands my passion for my team. Anyway, back to the game, we had unfortunately lost the game and I tested my sugar, 450.  WOW!!!!  Not only did we just lose the game, but my sugar is way too high.  I took the corrections, and it lowered back down to around 200-225, but would not go under 200 until the next day, due to my high level of stress. 

So the point of this story is, football season has just begun for me once again today.  I need to test more often throughout the game so I can figure out how much my stress is affecting my sugar, or is it just my snacking that is doing the damage.  And for those of you who are reading this and are Eagle’s fans I’ll leave you with a little song of happiness: “Fly Eagles fly, on the road to victory…….E-A-G-L-E-S”

Yesterday I had attended a luncheon with a lot of diabetes advocates, Certified Diabetes Educators, a few doctors and of course a couple of sales reps from various diabetic companies.  I won’t go into detail about all of the sales pitching, but I do want to share with all of you the great information I received from the “kidney guy.”  He was there to inform everybody that Diabetes had just surpassed Hypertension as the number one leader in kidney disease. He was discussing the importance of your glomerular filtration rates.  Yea I know, what the heck does that mean, so let’s just refer to them as your GFR.  Basically it is just a measure of how much creatinine is in your blood.  As it was explained to me, the poorer your kidneys the higher the creatinine which then lowers your GFR.  A healthy GFR should be above 60, if you are below 60 then you should definitely go see a kidney doctor.  I have never heard of this number before.  This number is becoming an even more important number for diabetics to know.  You should know your GFR just like you know your A1c and your blood pressure.  More on the A1c a little later.  Kidney disease is no joke, and it’s not painful.  Nobody knows they have it until it is too late and your on dialysis. Next time you go to get a script for your blood work, ask your doctor about it.  Tell them you just want to be tested to see where your number is.  If you are above 60, then you won’t get an exact number because you have nothing to worry about it.  If you’re getting blood work done anyway, why not just take a little more to find out if you are at risk. Now, let me get into the A1C discussion like I promised earlier.  Pretty much we can all start to so goodbye and farewell to that oh so important number.  The A1C will be slowly faded out over the rest of this year and the beginning of 2008.  It will now become called your “median blood sugar.”  It will also have a slightly different level of reading.  So your lucky number 7 or below that you have been targeting for so long will no longer be as important.  There will become a whole new scale you want to aim for. I also found it interesting that all of the CDE’s had expressed the same belief that they have never had a patient come in with an A1c of lower then 7 who did not experience multiple lows throughout the course of the day, which, because of this, could leave to gaining weight because of all the eating trying to fix a low. 

Please comment on any of this, I’d like to know if anybody out there knows about the GFR, or is it just me who is clueless.  Thanks.

Read more about Kidney disease and GFR here.

I refuse to talk politics on my blog.  Well, maybe if I started another one about politics then I could go on into more detail about what I want to get out today.  As I watched the CNN-YouTube debate last night, I was happy to see so many questions about diabetes.  As with the
ADA, I strongly live by the “Cure, Care, Commitment” slogan. 

There were questions asked about health insurance for all citizens, and all the candidates say the same thing, that everyone should be covered under a national plan.  I will not go into the politics and personal views behind all of this, which is not needed to fight this cause. 

What we do need is more of what was going on last night, real people asking real questions about real problems.  The more voices that are heard, and more horrible stories that are talked about in a national setting, the more progress we can get.  The fight over stem cell research is absurd.  For it, against it, don’t know anything about it, no matter where on the fence you stand, research it.  There are two main research possibilities, embryonic and adult.  If the fight for one of them isn’t working, then maybe we need to fight for something that we can win. 

Write a letter, make a phone call, and put pressure on your local representative to do something.  You will have a greater chance of getting something done by writing to your local rep then you will by writing to the state senate’s office.  All the school walks and bike rides and everything that the ADA and JDRF offers, it is still not enough. 

There needs to be a plan to action, but more importantly we need to know what our goals are.  Of course everyone’s goal is to find a cure for diabetes, but as the old cliché goes, “You must walk before you can run.”  We need step by step goals in order to get the main goal.  Donating money can be the first part.  Join me in my fight to help cure the disease.  But just donating money is not enough.  That’s showing that you care, but we need more of a commitment in order to win this battle.  Step Up, Step Out, Walk, Ride, do whatever you can to find a cure for this disease. 

I was reminded of a great story and experience of driving through Manhattan and Time Square after reading a recent post on Lemonade – Life. 

This event happened in mid-December of 2003.  Two of my friends, Tony and Tommy, and me decided to take a trip to New York City.  It’s not a long drive, maybe about an hour and a half depending on traffic, and in our case how many stops you must make because you have an undiagnosed diabetic with extremely high blood sugars.  I went to the bathroom at the house before we left and had to go again by the time we made it to McDonald’s 10 minutes away.  I thought to myself…. “Ahhh here we go again.” 

After finally making it onto the highway at about 9:30 am, we were smooth sailing with no traffic and thinking we’re going to make great time.  Until all of a sudden the driver, me, needs to make another pit stop.  The first stop was fine with my friends; it was the second and third ones that got them a little mad.  I said, “I can’t help it, I gotta go to bathroom, what do you want me to do?”   Finally, we made it into the city, a little confused on where to go or what roads to take, I just had to park anywhere because guess who had to go to the bathroom again?  That’s right you guessed it, the undiagnosed hyperglycemic driver.  We found a low priced parking garage that we decided to park the car in and just use public transportation the rest of the day.  Finally after a long, long day of traveling the city, visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Ground Zero, Empire State Building, and of course since I wish of being the next Apprentice, we had to visit Trump Tower. 

It was now time to pick up the car and drive to another part of town.  And now, let the fun begin.  I don’t know what street we were on, it was right across from Madison Square Garden, and we were stuck in traffic, and I had to go to the bathroom again, what a shock!  So I said, we haven’t moved in like 10 minutes, I can make it into Wendy’s right there and make it out before we move.  So I told Tony to jump in the driver’s seat and I’ll run in and out very fast.  As soon as I made it to Wendy’s door, I turned and saw traffic starting to move, I told Tony to just go around the block and pick me up.  So he drove off, and at the same time I realized I left my phone in the car. 

I stood out front of Wendy’s for about 15-20 minutes waiting for them to come back around, no luck, and no phone.  I finally found my way to a pay phone to call them, not answering. I walked around New York City, by myself, hyperglycemic symptoms, no cell phone, no car.  After about an hour of being by myself, I spotted Tony and Tommy.  “Dude, we were looking all over for you, we drove around like 4-5 times.  Do you know how hard it is to just try and go around the block here.”  Tony luckily found a parking spot directly in front of  Madison Square Garden.  It was time to get out of NYC.  After we got to the car, I was ready to go home, when Tony and Tommy decided they had to go to the bathroom now.  So I sat in the car, by myself, sun starting to fade away in New York City.  I had to go to the bathroom, once again, but there was nowhere near I could go and I was not going to leave these guys again. Once we made it home, I said I will NEVER drive in NYC again. 

One year later, I broke that promise.  It was not nearly as bad this time, I had a pump. 

Wow, has it been a long, hard, tiring, exhausting week.  I wonder how many other adjectives I could use that mean the samething.  I did NOT want to get out of bed this morning at 6:15 a.m. to go to work.  I was up until about 2 studying for an advanced managerial finance exam.  And as stressful as that was, my sugars stayed pretty level.  I tested at about 11:30 pm when I first started studying and it was around 135.  At about 2 am when I decided, well my body forced me to go to sleep, I was at 115.  Yes, I know I was shocked too, it went down.

On this beautiful, sunny morning in South Florida i came across an article called, “The Benefits of Being Diabetic.”  If you have never read this before, it is a must.  It’s so true how they are.

I seem to be drinking a lot more coffee lately because of the crazy schedule I have been having.  But oddly enough, my sugars have been more consistent with me being on the run constantly lately.  If anyone has any resources about the affects of drinking coffee and our wonderful disease, could you please send them to me.  I’ve been curious about that lately.

Well everyday have a great Friday and weekened and remember…..

TEST, DON’T GUESS!!!!!

The past couple of weeks have been so busy and stressful.  It seems like I don’t even have time to take a break to eat, which also means, I feel like taking time to test my sugar is going to put me behind my schedule.  College finals, studying for my real estate licensing exam, time with my lovely girlfriend, work, volunteering….. where is there time to test?

Although I know it only takes less than a minute to test, when I think about doing it, it seems like it is going to take me forever.  I know I need to do it more often, I hear from the doc, and especially from momma dukes.  I know there are plenty of other busy diabetics out there.  How do you all find the time to test?

Please comment and let me know.

I am still new to the diabetic blogging community, but in the last month since I have started to blog, I realized how caring everybody is.  It is nice to know there are a lot of people out there suffering with the same problems that I do on a daily basis.  Sometimes you get the feeling that nobody understands how much it sucks to test, test ,test, test, and yup, test again. 

It is also encouraging and very informative.  I’ve read other blogs that answered questions that I had and also brought certain things to my attention.  I just want to take the time to thank all of the bloggers who are helping in the diabetic community. 

Also, I want to thank the other bloggers who are giving my blog a chance and reading it.  It is a little frustrating at times since I am new to this and seeing that I don’t have any comments and not knowing if my voice is actually being heard. 

So, to all the bloggers…. Keep on blogging, you’ve made a difference to me and I’m sure there are plenty of others that can say the same.

What is your favorite thing to eat to cure a low?  Mine happens to be skittles, but I don’t know how to control how much to eat.  And for that reason, it usually sends me into a high.  I don’t know about you, but I over eat just about everytime I try to fix a low.  And after testing again after about a half hour, a 50 level will be around 200-250.

The skittles work fast, and they taste a lot better then sugar tabs.  But, this weekend began the start of my new diet and plan to lose 10-15 pounds, so I cut out the skittles and will use the tabs to fix a low.

While at the movies this weekend with my girlfriend seeing, “Knocked Up”, in the middle of laughing, I began to feel shaky and knew a low was coming.  So being at the movies, you would have figured I had lots of candy, but nope… just sugar tabs.  So as I went to open the bottle, they slipped out of my hand and they fell all over the floor.  I don’t know how you feel about your local movie theatre, but the 5 second rule is NOT in effect here.

 What was I going to do to fix my lower?  I had no candy.  Luckily, my wonderful girlfriend pulled out a pack of skittles and said, “here, I knew you would want these tonight.”

So, maybe its just fate, or maybe not, but skittles still are my choice of a fix.

Earlier today I came across an article from Foxnews.com titled “Diabetic Teens Skipping Insulin To Lose Weight.” It amazed me about the combination of being Diabetic and suffering from bulimia.  I thought it was tough just being a diabetic, but it just goes to show that life can always be worse.  It scares me to think that someone would rather be in a constant state of hyperglycemia because of not wanting to take insulin due to the fact that they may put on a few pounds. 

This is becoming a serious issue over the past couple of years unfortunately.  The article cites that nearly 450,000 Type 1 diabetics have purposely not taken insulin in order not to gain weight.  I hope that there becomes new information and more help comes available to people who are suffering from this.  There are ways to take insulin and still stay fit and not put on any weight anymore.  I understand this is another form of a disease, just like Diabetes is, but just like Diabetes, there must be a way to try and control it also. 

I am trying to learn a little more about this because I want to be able to do anything that I possibly can to help others in need.  If anyone knows anymore about this “Diabulimia” please comment.